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Friday, February 19, 2010

**Welcome Apartment Therapy readers!! We are excited to have you here. I just want to point out that the items made from this mold were soaps for little hands. The size is just perfect for them. Also, chocolates and Kool Aid Playdough were made out of food grade molds on another post. This is another fun mold to make for a birthday party. **

Look closely. Those are not real Legos. I made them and they are soap for my Sons Lego Birthday Party that is coming up. I told you we would be having a ton of great Boy Birthday ideas! ;)
Not only did I “make” the soap (I use the term make loosely here, as I used easy-to-use products from the craft store!) but I also made the mold that I used to make these lovely soaps Lego shaped! Seriously, you are all going to want to run out and do this. Totally easy and so cool!
I made my mold out of Urethane. I made it right on my counter top. I just taped some wax paper down to the counter top.
I got this fun new tool for Christmas and was so excited to get to use it for the next step. It is one of those clay tools that spits out perfectly shaped snake logs, in whatever size you want (there are other shapes, too). I used these log snakes along the bottom of the legos. See above how I just layed it along the bottom of the Lego?
These are all real legos (not soap or playdough). I used the clay to anchor the legos down to the wax paper how I wanted them to be. Just take the lego with the clay lining the bottom and place it where you want it on the wax paper, smooshing the lego flat against the counter top. Then, trim off the extra clay from around the lego. You can see one above before I trimmed it.
This step is important because it keeps the legos in place and keeps them from floating up into the mold.
Next, build a barrier around the legos. I cut down a sheet of chloroplast which you can buy at the hardware store or a sign shop(ask if they have remnants you can buy), but I had it on hand. Basically you want something plastic-y or you could cover your barrier with wax paper as well. In any hobby store in the modeling section you can buy sheet plastic that will work well. I used clay again to seal off our new barrier for the mold.
This is not always a necessary step, however we used it this time. Spray your surfaces down with a releasing agent.
The two larger bottles in the back are the urethane rubber (Part A and Part B). This is the stuff the mold is made out of. The two smaller bottles in the front are just tint. The reason to use the tint is that you want to make sure your mixture is completely integrated and you can tell this by if you see strings of die or if it is all one nice color. That plastic cup is what we mixed it all up in. We used a large wooden Popsicle stick to mix it. The proportion was just a 1:1, and then however much tint you wanted to add. I got my supplies from a store here in Phoenix called Sticky Stuff (as it says on the labels of the bottles).
Pour the mixture into your mold. You want to hold the cup high up so there is a long stream, to reduce bubbles.
You don’t want to move the cup around the mold, but instead pour in the same place and let the mixture fill up the mold on its own.
We filled about 1/2 inch higher then the top of the legos.
When you are done, push the popsicle stick to the side of the cup and let it all set up. Then, it will all pull out together in one piece and the clean up of the cup is done!
Peel the outside barrier off of the mold and now you have your new mold, with the legos still in place. This mold easily pulls right off of the wax paper and the barrier. The legos also easily pop right out and leave the beautiful mold ready to go!
Wash the mold out with soap and water to get rid of any residue, and it is ready to go. This mold is super strong and flexible. It is a DREAM to use! I now have so many things that I HAVE to make molds of, using this process! Sooooo cool!
This mold can be used for many different things but the first thing that I made with it is soaps. I bought the above products from Hobby Lobby. There were so many other things I could have bought to add to these soaps and it looked like so much fun. Maybe for my daughter’s birthday….
The actual soap making could not be easier, and the directions are on all of the packaging. I put one square of the glycerin in a Tupperware bowl and microwaved it for 30 seconds and it was ready to go. I quickly stirred in the dye and scent, as this soap sets up very quickly.
As a side note, see the above fragrance that I used? Well…these soaps are for a boy party. So I tried to find a masculine fragrance and when I couldn’t I thought “Relaxing Blend” would make Mother’s of Boys so happy (I first spotted the invigorating one and was smart enough not to give that to the children of my friends!). Ye-ah. I did not even check what this fragrance smelled like, I just thought I was brilliant for getting a “relaxing blend” for little boys. It is perfect…for flowery Grandmothers! I used it anyways as I am not one of patience and could not wait to exchange the smell another time.
The soap pours really nicely into these molds. One square of the glycerin made exactly one tray of my mold! Perfect. Ok, another funny event here. The above tray was using the red dye. It would not have mattered how much I poured into the soap, it was a pink color and NOT red! Apparently people that like soaps like them in pastel colors. I wanted bright and vibrant colors, so I used up all of my dye to get the colors of soap that I wanted. The red…well, I cheated and tried a batch with food coloring. I would not advise washing your hands with it, though. Which is kind of the point with soap, isn’t it? Oh, but the red looks so much better for my Son’s Party! I actually did wash my hands with one of the red legos. The red did come off of my hands, but I don’t want to risk it with my friends and family. So, the pictures and decorations will be with the red ones, but it will be the pink ones in the kid’s Loot Boxes!

Some of you have already caught one tip that I did not mention at first. ;) I used white glycerin instead of clear. However, the store was out of the clear and, as I stated earlier, I am impatient! I love craft stores too much, and that does not agree with my wallet. So, I go as rarely as I can (to reduce the impact it has on my wallet!) and knew I should not come back for another trip! But, if you buy clear glycerin you will not need as much of your dye.
I mean, look at how cute they look next to the faucet! Seriously! I love them. We will have them next to all of the sinks on the day of the party.
Using this kind of a mold is fantastic for so many reasons. If I had a better lens on my camera (or were a better photographer) you could see that each circle on the top of each lego has the word LEGO on it. This mold makes a perfect copy of whatever you used, right down to the teeny tiny details!
Did you know that on your legos one of the dots has a bit of a circle on the words? This is on every lego and I’m assuming it is because of filling the molds up at the factory? Just thought I'd pass along that tidbit that I observed, while doing this project! ;)
This kind of a mold is an absolute dream to craft with. It is very flexible and everything just pops right out of it! Also, it is really strong so you do not have to worry about it breaking down. I will be making a mold like this again and again. I can think of so many items that I would love to recreate over and over again! Keep watching for more posts about my Son's Birthday Party. I used my lego molds with many other things (chocolate, ice cubes, playdough, gummy candies, etc!). Just as a disclaimer though, if you use it for food make sure you make a mold that is approved for food (just ask the store and they will know what kind you will need for that), like this mold that I made.
Rebecca

Katrina here:
OMG!!! I LOVE THEM! I am going to have to make a mold now! The kids are going to go crazy over this one for sure. Maybe with some of these by the sink I won't have to remind my boys to wash WITH SOAP every time. ;)

kitten muffin: be careful of how big the blocks are, vs the amount of urethane you mix up, you wouldn't want to run out of the mix and only have your block half covered, the stuff will start to set up and get a film over the top before you could get a second batch ready, then the mold will probably break apart into two layers at that point... not good.steven and chelsea: from the quick googling i just did, it looks to be about 12-24 hrs for a proper cure on the urethane mold, then add in the time for whatever materials you will be making the copies out of...

I cant wait to try this with my kids.. And.. Show it to all my fellow bloggers.. I hope you dont mind me linking back to this...with all credits back to you of course.. I love this new blog I have come along.. Thanks!

OMGosh!! I cannot believe how cool this is. Way sorry that we just had the birthday 2 days ago but so sure that I will do this for next year .. my only issue will be which of the 1000s of pieces of "inventory" we have to use for the mold!

So stinkin' cute!! I saw directions on how to make one of these molds on Instructables but was too intimidated to try...after looking at your directions, I think I'm still too intimidated! LOL! But your soap is JUST darling!!

Well im back to leave another comment. I just wanted to let you know that I linked up with you and wanted to show you that I have Featured you on my blog! I loved this idea and so did my readers. GO ahead.. and grab my button on my blog, its just for fun, but let the rest of the blogging world know that you were featured on my blog! here is my link to your feature.. have a grand ol' day!

I am so happy I just found your blog. I was wondering how one could make one's own molds for soap literally this morning as I was walking to work!! Thank you for sharing all this awesome info. I'll be having a proper root around your blog later :)

these are adorable, and they bring so many ideas to mind, but how is it price wize? is the mold maker pretty cheap? i sometimes get into all these craft products and they break the bank if ya know what i mean.

Wow! What a wonderful, adorable idea! Both boys and girls will love these tiny soaps I'm sure. The possibilities are endless as to what you could make the molds out of and also what you could fill them with. However, if you're going to use them to make edible items, I would make seperate ones just for that purpose.

Your tutorials are terrific-- wonderfully thorough, and the photos in them are a big help. Can't wait to see what else you and your team's creative minds dream up next. Thanks for taking the time to share it all with us. :)

I love this idea, and I have another bite sized activity for your molds.... have you thought of doing chocolates yet? Chocolate legos would be PERFECT for a little boy's valentine's day, and you already have the molds. Now I want one.

Even better, the legos are NOt at all too small for chocolates. I have a choc mold that is made like a little car, and they are too big for one yummy bite full. Lego chocs would be perfectly sized, and could be flavored well, or even filled with a teency dollop of caramel. Hope to see it if you do make it-HB

i think that could be a bad idea... you would inadvertently give a younger kid the idea that it's "OK" to eat his/her Actual Legos... if you make the larger sized ones that they HAVE TO bite in half to swallow, then when they try to bite a real one and can't... that'll be safer for them in the long run, YMMV of course.

What a great idea! I found Lego ice cube trays/molds on ebay and while they weren't the cheapest, I can see using them over and over for all kinds of things. My grandson is coming 1300 miles to spend part of the summer including his 6th birthday with me — I think a Lego themed birthday party will be great!